Kevin Trapp had to be 31 years old to reach the peak of his creativity in his varied professional football career.

He "already has a few games under his belt," said the Frankfurt goalkeeper with visible enthusiasm after the 1-0 home win over West Ham United, but this encounter was his "best game" and Thursday was his "best day". .

In short: "It's something very special," said the national goalkeeper, befitting the Frankfurt football holiday.

George Daniels

Editor in the sports department

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The two semi-final wins (2-1 in the first leg) over the English saw Eintracht advance to the Europa League final on May 18 in Seville against Glasgow Rangers.

Coach Oliver Glasner mentioned May 18 "sometime at the beginning of the season," Trapp recalled with a grin on his face and could hardly believe his luck that this day would actually go down in the history books of the club - regardless of whether the Hessians as proud winner of the second highest European competition - Eintracht would be the first German winner in the Europa League - will return to the Main.

“Now a dream has come true.

We still have a game to go to bring this thing home," said Trapp.

From the podium in the press conference room, the leader sounded like he had no doubt his side would pull off that final feat.

The self-confidence of the Europa League high-flyers, the Hessian Eurofighter, is appropriate: Eintracht has not lost any of their twelve games so far.

In the role of the initial outsider, she has so far dominated the competition with an impressive naturalness, to the surprise of prominent competitors such as Barcelona, ​​Fenerbahce Istanbul or Olympiacos Piraeus.

Now things can go fast for Trapp and his football career.

If Frankfurt, for whom Rafael Borré scored 1-0 (26th minute) against West Ham, also wins the final against the 55-time Scottish champions on the big stage, then May 18th would be the best day in of the goalkeeper's career.

In less than two weeks, one great feeling of happiness would follow the next.

The Rangers are "a very good team, we know what's coming.

They play in a similar physical way to West Ham,” Trapp praised the opponent in the final, confident that he would still be able to take this one hurdle.

Sports director Markus Krösche expects "an extremely difficult game, but now we want to finish the journey and win the Europa League - that's the goal".

Like in 1980, when Eintracht won the UEFA Cup in two games against Gladbach.

With the now 67-year-old Bundesliga record player Charly Körbel, who as a club legend demonstratively raised the trophy in the World Cup arena on Thursday like 42 years ago.

Rangers, on the other hand, made it into a European Cup final for the fifth time in their 150-year history.

In 1972 they triumphed in the Cup Winners' Cup, beating Bayern Munich in the semi-finals.